Belkıs Dilligil

Belkıs Dilligil — Biography

Belkıs Dilligil was a stage-trained actress who appeared on the big and small screen for roughly four decades during Yeşilçam's busiest years. Her birth surname was Fırat; she took the name Dilligil on marrying Avni Dilligil, one of the pioneers of Turkish theatre. Audiences remember her best as Melek Hanım in Korkusuz Korkak, opposite Kemal Sunal.

A Fatih High School graduate, she began as an amateur at the Fatih Halkevi and made her professional stage debut in Elektra at the İzmir City Theatres. One of her early film jobs was Yüzbaşı Tahsin (1950), followed by Beni Mahvettiler (1951), Bir Demet Yasemen (1961), Küçük Hanımın Şoförü (1962), Zoraki Milyoner (1963) and Severek Ayrılalım (1971). After her husband Avni Dilligil died in 1971 she kept working in cinema; in the 1980s she appeared in Mine (as Reyhan), Yürek Yarası (as Cennet), Yedi Bela Hüsnü and Tele Kızlar. In her last years she acted in television series such as Doktorlar (1989), Yalnızız (1992) and Yorgun Savaşçı (1993).

Her daughter Çiçek Dilligil also became an actress. Badly injured in a traffic accident on the Bosphorus Bridge on 10 May 1995, she spent four days in intensive care and died in Istanbul on 14 May 1995. She was buried in the family plot at Karacaahmet Cemetery.